Legislative staffing is overdue
New Mexico is the only state with an all-volunteer legislature, which severely limits our ability to serve our communities. Now serving in my sixth year as a state representative, nearly everyone who contacts me assumes I have a salary and a full-time staff. I do not. Still, like the rest of my colleagues, I take my responsibility to help my constituents with their needs very seriously.
I generally meet folks in a local coffee shop, rather than in my home where I have a desk in my den for legislative work. As someone who recently retired, I am grateful that my schedule allows ample time to meet with constituents. However, many of my colleagues are working parents, and for them, the strains of being unpaid lawmakers with limited staffing are much greater.
Despite recent claims to the contrary (“Democrats are failing at budget transparency,” My View, Jan. 30) by Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, efforts to modernize our state Legislature have been underway for nearly two decades with numerous bills and studies to consider increasing staffing, providing salaries to lawmakers and lengthening sessions.
Most recently, a group of women lawmakers have been meeting to help move these efforts forward so New Mexico can better recruit and retain legislators who reflect our state’s diversity and finally bring our Legislature into the 21st century. Numerous nonprofits such as Common Cause have conducted polls regarding these areas of possible modernization and found a majority of New Mexicans have indicated support for all three potential initiatives.
This year, House Bill 2 includes a $6 million appropriation for legislative district staff. Rep. Montoya has claimed this funding “magically appeared out of thin air” — a flippant and inaccurate comment that undermines the work my colleagues and I have been doing for years, as well as the reality that the majority of our constituents want a modernized legislature.
In 2022, Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, and I allocated funding to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of New Mexico to study the modernization of the Legislature. Researchers contacted legislative staff members and legislators from all three major political affiliations, Republicans, Democrats and decline to state, regarding their perspectives on modernization initiatives.
Last year, the Legislature built on this study with more in-depth research to develop models of how district offices and staffing could be implemented. The Legislative Council Service, the nonpartisan body that oversees legislative matters, commissioned these studies and proposed recommendations to the Legislative Council, a committee consisting of Republican and Democratic leadership from both the House and the Senate on Oct. 16 in a public meeting.
The budget has clear and explicit guardrails and guidelines on how this funding can and can’t be used — the $6 million can be used for legislative district staff, office space and equipment. It cannot be used for any political or campaign-related activity, despite Montoya’s claims.
New Mexicans deserve a legislature that is equipped to respond to our 21st-century challenges. We have the resources and we have the guardrails in place; there is no better time than the present to deliver on legislative staffing.
Rep. Joy Garratt is a Democrat from Albuquerque representing District 29.